Two were fighting on the beach one morning, and Ragnvald was woken from sleep to help settle it. As he arrived they fell over onto a small ship’s boat, breaking the gunwale. Ragnvald sprang forward to pull Hakon’s man away, while Harald’s friend Thorbrand gathered up the other. Thorbrand was a small, bullish man, with curly, sand-colored hair. Pretty hair surrounding an unpretty face. Ragnvald thought him dull until he saw in Thorbrand’s smile intelligence and an easy humor.
“What do you think we should do?” Thorbrand asked, after the two brawling warriors had retreated to their own camps.
“Get moving as soon as possible,” said Ragnvald. “This waiting only breeds discontent.”
“No, where should we attack first?”
“I can see both sides,” said Ragnvald.
“I have heard that about you, but tell me, if you had the deciding of it, where would you order the attack?”
“I serve Hakon,” said Ragnvald, “and Solvi Hunthiofsson has used me ill.” He wanted to share a confidence with Thorbrand, though. “I am from Sogn, and Hakon wants to install Heming in Maer. It would only be a matter of time before he looked south again. Without one powerful king, Sogn would be easy to conquer. So I truly can see both sides.”
“You are the son of Eystein, who was son of King Ivar who ruled all of Sogn,” said Thorbrand. “Your grandfather was a great man.”
“Yes,” said Ragnvald, trying not to show his bitterness. “It does not take long for fortunes to change.”
*
Ragnvald wandered the grounds with Oddi, watching the men spar, first in pairs, then attacking in groups. When Harald grew weary of the discussions between his uncle and his father-in-law, he drilled his men. These were tactics, it appeared, for a single man fending off a gang. Ragnvald asked to borrow practice swords from Harald’s arms master, and for Oddi and Dagvith to attack him. He tried to repeat what he had seen Harald’s soldiers do, and ended up on his back on the dirt. Oddi took his arm to help him up, and they tried again.
The trick of this fighting technique seemed to be to use one of your opponents to distract the other. Ragnvald was growing closer to success when a tide of men started moving toward the center of the camp.
Ragnvald and Oddi followed, and found a circle forming around where Harald fought off groups of men, armed with wooden axes, staves, and wooden swords. They came at him in groups of fours and fives. At Ragnvald’s side, Oddi hardly breathed, waiting for Harald to fall under that onslaught. He stood out, a golden head above darker fellows, and moved swiftly, sweeping legs, fending off attackers, sometimes throwing them off with main force.
Ragnvald had never seen a man move like Harald did, too fast to follow, yet with a grace and surety that made his movements look perfectly considered, without a single wasted breath. From the look on Oddi’s face, he had never seen the like either. Harald did not hold himself like a warrior, proud and wary. His easy speed and ferocious strength needed no posturing. Finally, with sweat dripping from the ends of his unkempt hair, Harald put up his hand to call a halt. The men around him applauded. Harald waved them off and gestured for a servant to give him ale, his chest heaving like a dog’s after a run.
“It takes more than one man to subdue so many districts,” said Ragnvald doubtfully.
“Look around you,” said Oddi. “If anyone can do it, he can.”
As soon as Harald defeated his assailants, he sprang up on a stone and called out, “Listen to me, men. Tomorrow we travel to Hordaland. Now that Vestfold is under our control, they will be the first new district of my Norway, a kingdom that will stand against Denmark, England, even the Frankish Empire. A kingdom that will protect its citizens from raiders, either from our own shores or others. My kingdom will bind together, as you bind to me.”
The men cheered, and Ragnvald applauded as well. For centuries, Danish kings had been expanding their territories, and England had come together under their King Alfred, in order to repulse an army of Danish invaders. Ragnvald still doubted that Harald himself could unite the Norse kingdoms of valley and fjord with forested mountains and flat farmland, but with someone like Hakon, he might form a strong confederacy. An alliance of strong kings and a strong vision could become a company of wolves to protect a hall rather than endanger it. At least now he could see what had caused Hakon to ally with Harald.
*
Finally, after some private exchange of promises, Hakon announced that they would indeed raid in Hordaland, for it was rich, and those who desired might stay the winter in Vestfold, drinking Harald’s ale and training for the next year’s war. He made it sound like his first choice, but Heming’s cloudy expression told everyone the truth. Harald and Guthorm had come north with empty words—threats for Hunthiof, promises for Hakon—and now proposed to leave with none of them fulfilled.
The pilot Grim became more talkative when they were under sail again. He sat at the steering oar and pointed out mountain landmarks and said their names: Giant’s Bed, Thor’s Hammer, Tyr’s Hand. Heming spent the voyage trying to bet with Ragnvald and Oddi about anything and everything, how many leaps the dolphins running before their ships would make, whether Grim would call for oars when they beached or show off his skill by bringing the ship in entirely under sail, and a thousand other things.
Ragnvald rarely took these bets; to win would be to anger Heming, and he did not have the silver or the stomach for losing. Oddi bet, though, and his moleskin gloves changed hands a half dozen times before the ship passed by Sogn Fjord again on the way south.
Harald and Guthorm sailed on their own ship, leading a separate convoy. Ragnvald sometimes glimpsed the fine lines of the royal ship through the mists that lay off the prow. It moved like a sea serpent, cutting through waves, never wallowing, disappearing as its own wind sped it ahead.
After two days of sailing, all of the ships found space to beach on an island just north of the mouth of Hardanger Fjord, Hordaland’s main artery.
“This would be a fine place for a town,” said Harald to Hakon, when they settled around the evening’s fire. “A protected harbor, space for farming, mountains for defense.”
All the things he named stood before them across a narrow strait. Farms already divided the flatter lands. High above, a cliff thrust out over the fields, a fine lookout point. Fires set by men from the other ships winked down across the beach. The sky was a bottomless twilight blue overhead, with orange and pink at the horizon.
Hakon and Harald’s favorites were all gathered around this fire, sons and friends and hangers-on. Ragnvald found himself seated next to Thorbrand again, no bad thing. Thorbrand was Harald’s fast friend, but he had his own mind as well.
Guthorm called for quiet. “Tomorrow we sail up Hardanger Fjord into the heart of Hordaland,” he said. “There is a meeting of this district’s kings. We will take our army there and let them see our strength. Then they will swear allegiance to Harald. Tell your men to make ready, and to eat well tonight.”